First meetings
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: AFter Beginning and Endings and before Diplomatic Mission  A new chapter, after over a year!  Robotech Copyright Harmony Gold, Inc.
1. Default Chapter

First meetings

            _Note: This story takes place after "Beginnings and Endings" and before "Diplomatic relations".  _

            "Very good." Korva said, as he checked his data pad.  This ship had been a destroyer, heavily loaded with mecha and weapons before plunging into the earth.  The ship was a wreck, but its heavily armored hull had protected most of the interior—at least the non-living parts. There were no surviving crew.  "Load the missiles first, and start on marking what ship cannon can be dismounted.  Mecha?"

            "Most of the fighters are gone—probably launched against the battlefortress and Breetai's forces."  The combat engineer in charge of this ship said. "But just about all the Regults and Glaugs are intact—and we also have some cavalry mecha that look salvageable."  Now for the main prize. "And the protoculture energizer is still intact—we're tapping it for all remaining protoculture reserves now."

            "Excellent!"  Korva said, not having to feign happiness.  Many of the crashed ships had suffered from protoculture ruptures releasing the priceless  power source into the athmosphere.  More importantly, even a depleted ship like this could keep hundreds of mecha running for years.  He slapped the engineer on the back, staggering him—Korva was nearly as large as Breetai.  

            "I'll get in touch with command, and we can get some extra re-entry pods out here as soon as possible."

            ***

            The command center of the Tal Vergnitz was no stranger to the controlled chaos of a military operation—it was a command ship, after all. It was, however, a stranger to the males that currently " infested" it (in the words of one junior officer) and the nature of the operation currently being conducted.  

            "That's the report." Korva said from the screen.  All present had to strain to make out what he said—the skies had opened up, just like he predicted, and less than a week after the destruction of  Dolza's fortress, the amount of electrical interference was truly impressive.  Sharin could see the sky behind the soaked commander, with enough lightning bolting through it to read by. 

            "We have at least six ships that are partially intact, but with no crew—I've started stripping them.  In addition, there are numerous crew and mecha crews that made it down alive—I'm sending them over to."

            "In addition to the two crewed ships."  Sharin said.

            "Yes—but they'll never fly again, so we're stripping them as well."

            "Excellent commander."  Sharin  said formally.  She was better at dealing with the males, if for no other reason then she'd worked with them before—always with a viewscreen between them, however, she thought.  Fortunately, in the face of the utter disaster of the moment, dealing with males wasn't as hard as she thought it would have been. 

            "Hmph." The snort came from her mecha commander, reminding Sharin that not everyone was eager to handle the new reality.  Sharin turned.

            "Yes, Tzarna?"

            "We don't need those males." Tzarna said, "Especially on the ship!"  Sharin sighed, 

            "Tzarna, we need anyone who will help us right now- if an Invid walked in the door and offered I'd take the offer."  A snort answered that. "And you're just still angry about the fighter bays."  Sharin said with a smile.  The number of salvaged mecha and material, and the fact that they had no time to build exterior warehouses, meant that the several ships of Sharin's flotilla were stuffed to the gills with equipment and mecha—Tzarna had not been pleased.

            "If we're attacked…"

            "I doubt it—at least not immediately." Sharin said, "At least seventy percent of this planet's side infrastructure is gone, from what we've been able to see, Breetai's fleet is also heavily damaged, and there is still fighting in orbit," _Not that it will make any difference in the end._ Sharin thought—with no organized command, the few loyalist ships were attacking a fleet with a functioning command structure.  Breetai wasn't having any fun, but the outcome was clear.  

            "And in any case, unless you have a factory satellite handy, we need everything we can get, both organic and inorganic."  Sharin waited, to see if Tzarna had a real complaint or if she was just venting.  The latter, she judged, as Tzarna glared down on the command center, where a male with the tabs of a field engineer was bent over the map board, discussing with Tulka Weaponsofficer on how to best bury the ships, concealing and protecting them, while keeping the weapons easily usable.  From the mutters Sharin heard, they were right now commiserating on the mystery of the proper handling of waste heat from the weapons.  She shrugged.  They would come up with an answer and Sharin would approve it—that was what having competent subordinates meant. 

            "No!  Are you insane?"  Zara's shout echoed through the command center, and Sharin looked down.  Zara was her XO, and right now was serving as her flag captain, but that didn't sound like a normal dispute.  She quickly left the command bubble, Tzarna in tow and headed down to the floor.

            "What is it?"  She asked, as she came up to Zara and Korva's second, "Well, Zara, Shygon?  I expect officers to avoid bellowed arguments in the middle of the command center."

            "This…"  Zara bit off the obscenity, "Has completely changed my work schedules—we won't even get started on the external fortifications for at least a week, and he wants to go playing at making canals!"  Shygon growled, and Tzarna moved up to Zara to give her support.  Sharin felt a pounding headache threaten to start up.

            "Very well—Shygon, why are you doing this?"  He started to swell and Sharin waved a hand at him, "I'm asking seriously—the number of times I've been on a planet can be counted on both hands."

            "Very well, My-lady"  Shygon said, "We are in a depression, as part of what was a stream before the bombardment—the water was vaporized, and several craters further up from us are serving as a combination of dam and reservoir." Sharin nodded hoping this would make sense.  It did.

            "But we are effectively in the bed of a stream, and those craters will fill up, those walls be crested, and which point the water will be coming here—and we need to divert it.  If we don't, by the end of the week, half the ships will be underwater."  He finished.  

            "How?"  Sharin asked.  Zara glared at  Shygon.

            "By ceasing all work on the fortifications, and making a river _through_ our base."  She subsided at a motion from Sharin.  

            "Shygon?"  Sharin prompted.

            "Yes, Zara is right—if we try to divert the river _around_ our base it will be an unstable situation."  He pointed at the holomap of the region around the grounded ships.  "Equally, we need water, and by keeping the river as much to its original course as possible, we have a stable course, _and_ sufficient water for all our needs."  Sharin nodded. 

            "And the division of work?"

            "It cannot be helped my lady—we only have so many trained engineering staff."  Sharin considered.  

            "Zara is right, I would prefer to have the fortifications finished."  She thought, "How much work requires on the spot knowledge, and how much simply requires following orders?"

            "About 75/25." Shygon answered.

            "We don't need ground troops right now, or all of our fighters and mecha—you have first choice on any non-working soldiers, male or female.  Will that help?"

            "Yes…but we won't be able to finish the fortifications by your deadline."

            "Then concentrate on the main ships, and throw up some temporary warehouses for the salvage, stuff it in re-entry pods, whatever."

            "Yes, my lady."

            "Sharin!" Tzarna said in horror, "Those are elite squadrons…"

            "Which have all had basic training."  Sharin said,  "If anyone protests…tell them that Korva implied that the females were unable to keep up."  Even knowing it was false, Tzarna started to swell up.

            "The day that a-"  She bit her outraged protest off and gave an unwilling smile.  "That will have…an effect, commander."  Sharin nodded.  Now to more serious matters. 

            "Zara…come with me."  Sharin said. Some activities, such as a verbal discipline, were best conducted away from prying eyes.  

            Neither said anything until they got to the command bubble.  Sharin locked the door, and coded the privacy setting.  White noise generators started up, their gentle hiss making it impossible for those outside the bubble to hear anything, no matter how much shouting went on inside.  Sharin sat down and looked up at Zara.

            "This is difficult for all of us."  Sharin said.  "But you have to work at getting along with the males.  Shygon's plan is both necessary and well thought out."  To her credit, Zara couldn't meet Sharin's level gaze.

            "But Sharin— we cannot let ourselves lose discipline!"

            "And we will not."  Sharin gestured to the command floor. "Does it look like it to you?"

            "No…"

            "But you are also my voice—to both males and females."  Sharin continued.  "Korva could have demanded such a place, but he has not—and that is a sign of trust that we _cannot_ treat poorly."  She sighed, "Can you do that?"

            "I…I do not know, commander. Maybe I should request to be reposted."

            "To where?"  Sharin asked, curiosity in her voice.  "I need you here—you are the XO, and flag captain now, and that isn't a job I can just hand off to someone else.  If you cannot work with males, I will simply ask Korva to take over as flag captain for the male units…but I would prefer to not do that."  She cocked her head.  "So can you make the attempt?"

            "I…yes commander, I will try.  Thank you for your trust."

            "Don't get formal on me, Zara."  Sharin took the sting out of her words.  "Besides, I remind you of your long standing wish—to be free of officious superiors who have never been off the command fortress…that has been achieved, now,  We will never again have to fill out forms explaining why we dared use our reserve missiles for something as unimportant as saving a ship… just think of the freedom!"  She paused, "And now you talk about getting reassigned just as this happy day occurs…I won't have it!"  Zara gave a halfhearted smile, but she met Sharin's gaze head on.  

            "I…understand, commander.  I'd better get back to work."      

            "Good. I'll be down in a few moments."  Zara nodded and left.  Sharin waited until the door was closed before she sagged, giving a tired sigh.  She hadn't slept for four days—none of them had.   That was probably the reason for Zara-

            No.  

            There was a brittleness in her friends eyes that she hadn't seen before.  As much as Zara had snarled about some of the more idiotic aspects of the Zentraedi existence, she had been sure of her place in it… and that place was gone.   She wasn't the only one.  Sharin stretched tiredly. 

            "I hope you can work through this."  She said outloud.  "I need everyone to survive this."  More importantly, she needed people who could think, not who would dive into the past. That was dead—four days, and four infinities dead.   

            ***

            "Mary!  Danny is barfing again!"  The 17 year old stopped at the cry of one of the children.  Mary Wilson had been working with the children at the elementary school, as part of her high schools work project when the evacuation alert had come. The teachers had decided not to evacuate—they'd had enough of UEG alarms, even after the destruction of a good chunk of Canada.  Mary had wanted to argue…but she needed the A.  

            That "A" had become irrelevant, it had turned out.  First the sky had darkened, like a vast cloud had come over the sun, and then they saw glints of thousands—millions of ships.   She and the children had been in the lower section of the school, in a building shorter than any of the surrounding ones, and that had been responsible for their survival.  Three titan bolts of energy had come out of the sky, turning the center of the city into an inferno, knocking down every building in the area, except for theirs, shielded…partially.  No adults had survived, and only 40 children, out of the entire school had lived.  Maybe there had been others, but the fires had threatened to combined, and there was no help, and the only people Mary had seen had been hideously burned people, dead or dying.  She'd taken the children, and started walking out.  

            But they had been going slowly—the rain made walking difficult and the city was a maze of wrecked buildings now, with "streets" that were mountains of unstable rubble.  She'd even seen the neighborhood where her parents, her sister, and her pet cat "Tibbles" had lived.  It was now a vast crater, nearly a half mile wide, with molten rock in the bottom still hissing as the rain came down on it.  At least it had been fast.  She hoped.

            But right now, she had other things to worry about.  They'd eaten just a few hours ago, and she thought the food would still be good—the freezers in the wrecked store were still reasonably intact, but the 4th grader was bent over, vomiting onto the street.  Mary quickly reached him and held  him, wiping his face when he was finished, and giving him a drink of water from a water bottle they'd taken.  

            "Are you ok?"

            "My stomach hurts…"  he said, and Mary felt his head.  It was hot.

            _Could it be radiation?  Maybe those rayguns did something else._

            "Well, we'll keep going, lets see if we can find your parents."

            "We won't…they're gone."  A 2nd grader said, starting to stitch.  

            "Well that won't help!" Mary said, authoritatively.  "WE don't know that, and we won't until we find some police!  I know it's been a while, but once we get out of the city, we can make a camp!"  The children looked at her dubiously.  

            "C'mon everyone!  Let's go!"  She said, "We have a few hours before we have to go to bed." 

            _Please let someone—anyone come and help._  Mary thought.  She couldn't do this much longer.  The children's parents were dead—or as completely helpless as they were.  She hadn't seen any rescue choppers or firefighters—which meant that what had happened here had probably happened everywhere.  There had been one last tremendous blaze of light, that had penetrated even into the room where they had cowered.  Mary wondered who that had been—but she didn't think it had been the enemy.  

            To be continued. 


	2. Chapter II

            _The invid were charging in and there was nothing to be done—the last escort ship was burning, it's hull splitting and Sharin had to-_

Sharin woke up in the command bubble.  She must have drifted off.  The commander stretched, trying to feel rested, but no.  She couldn't remember ever being so exhausted. She looked down onto the command floor, and noticed that the tempo of operations were somewhat slower—not all had taken themselves off to bed (had it been only three hours since she'd ordered half the staff to rest?), but had found out of the way corners and gone to sleep.  The main view screen was showing the exterior of the ship, with the engineering mecha of the males moving mountains to get the base ready.  Sharin saw the water in the bottom of the drainage ditches that had been dug and gave silent thanks that she'd listened to Shygon.  A single re-entry pod touched down, disgorging more refugee zentraedi and salvage.

            "Commander?"  Sharin looked up at the comscreen.  It was Korva, and how did he manage to keep going?  It wsan't that she was a female—half the males were just as exhausted, but Korva seemed to get stronger the longer he worked. 

            "Yes?"

            "The salvaging is going well—and we've started bringing the refugee zentraedi survivors in.  No flag officers though."

            _Which means that there will be no command conflicts, Thank Zor._  All they needed right now was for someone to butt in convinced she—or he, knew how to run things better.  

            "I'll be out."

            "Ah…"

            "Yes?"

            "Commander, we need to start searching the micronian city."  Sharin frowned, but let Korva continue.

            "It's almost completely flattened, but it was a command node—if anyones going to get their people organized enough to be a threat, it will be there."  Sharin nodded.  

            "Can we spare the people?"  She shook her head and answered her own question.  "Of course not—we're understaffed for what we need to do now as is."  Still…  "Korva, I agree, but send a small team in—do you have any suggestions?"

            "Yes."

            "Good, but let them know if they meet any resistance, fall back and we'll use missiles from the ship.  I'm not going to lose people." 

            "Very good, commander."

            "Oh, and Korva, if they find any Micronians, living ones, bring them in as well.  We could do with some intelligence."

            "And if The Singer's there?"  Everyone now referred to that horrible screeching harridan as "The Singer", apparently a name they'd picked up when some of Breetai's people had come wandering in—perfectly happy to join up with anyone that seemed to know what they were doing.  

            "That falls under the category of fall back to the ship and watch us level the place."

            "Understood."  Sharin headed for the door.  

            The first thing that hit her was the humidity.  The ships were still sealed environments, and machinery, even the tough systems on their mecha and ships, didn't generally like steam baths.  But the air was thick with hot fog, even as the rain thundered down.  Sharin made the mistake of licking her lips and spat at the bitter taste.

            "Not good, is it."  Korva said, looming up out of the lightning shot darkness.  There were floodlights, but they almost did more harm than good, the fog diffusing their beams. 

            "No."  She said, "And the heat isn't much better."  Korva shrugged.

            "We may not have to worry about that much longer."

            "Oh?"

            "No way to tell, but so many cubic miles of sea water have been converted to steam, not all of it will fall in rain like this."  He gestured around.  "Some of it will go up into the upper atmosphere, along with the dust and ash, and form a barrier against the sun—we may see rather cold temperatures for some time to come."

            "Everywhere?"

            "Mainly in the 'northern' hemisphere," Korva said.  At Sharin's raised eyebrow, he continued, "We managed to get some Micronian topographical maps from their satellites before they were destroyed.  In any case, the majority of their industrialization was in this part of the planet 'above' the equator—and so I expect the worst climatic disruptions will occur here."  Sharin nodded, considering just how much she had to learn about living on a planet—fortunately Korva was willing to share his knowledge.  

            Sharin, still thinking, strode to the hall (Actually a mecha bay in one of Korva's landing ships )where most refugees were being gathered.  There they were, male and female, although they'd segregated themselves by sex and rank.  Her eye swept over them and she noticed how few were command rank. 

            _Of course—most commanders would never dream of abandoning their ships—and very few of them made it down alive._

            "I am Fleet Commander Sharin."  She said, watching for reactions.  The females were smaller in number than the males—over all the zentraedi fleet was male dominated even if the ratio was reversed in elite units, but the numbers weren't as small as she might have thought—the female mecha units evidently had survived the battle in better shape then the males.

            "If you remain here, it will be under my command.  Anyone not wishing to accept this will be provided with a supply of food and their mecha restocked."  She waited, as a quiet muttering filled the chamber.  

            "Where is your authority for this?"  A female rose.  Under Sharin's calm gaze, she dropped her eyes, and muttered, "My lady."  

            "None." Sharin replied.  "The command fortress is gone—none of the commanders were able to send so much as a single order before they died." She smiled.  "Of course, I'm the highest ranking officer, and as a newly promoted fleet commander, the highest ranked one you're likely to find, although Lord Breetai has more seniority."  A growl ran through the crowd at that, even from some soldiers who Sharin judged by their unit tabs had been part of Breetai's forces.

            "He betrayed us—betrayed the zentraedi!"  A male snarled.  

            "When will the Masters send a relief fleet?"  Another asked.  Sharin looked at them and spoke quietly.

            "There will be no relief fleet—the protoculture reserves of the empire were nearly depleted—and I'm certain that what units are left will have their hands full with the Invid. We may hope—but we cannot put our trust in anyone but our own unit.  As I said—if you wish to remain, swear allegiance. If not, I will work to help you as best I may."  She nodded, and left the hall. 

            "Another unit to our cause." Korva said.

            "Not all will join." 

            "True, and they'll be missed—but so far we've had over 10,000 members of other units come to our banner, and how many have left?  Fifty?"

            "Sixty five."  Sharin said.

            "Not worth bothering about."  Korva said.  "Well, I'll set up the recon teams—I also want them to bring any micronian items they can transfer in easily—I'm not at all satisfied with what the command fortress called 'information' about their technology—it didn't mention any five mile diameter cannons, after all."

            Sharin nodded and Korva set out to his command ship.  

***

            "Here—I've got you."  Gary Chang said, as he eased the shocked woman out of the room.  Her face was covered in dried blood, but she didn't look like she needed immediate medical attention—which was good, because right now he was a doctor without any hospital to send people to, no medicine, and no bandages. 

            The hospital was a burning wreck, and no doctors on duty had made it out—the alert had sent many people to their shelters…Unfortunately, most of them were conventional shelters left over from the global war.  As a doctor, Chan had been in on briefing for emergency relief, including the confident assurances by everyone from the mayor on down that they'd have at least a week to evacuate.  

            When he died he planned on looking up the mayor and asking him what he thought about that breezy assertion now.

            "Dr. Chan—Cindy isn't breathing anymore!"  A young woman ran up.  "What do we do?"

            "Carry the body to the edge of the clearing."  The woman was outraged. 

            "But she-"

            "Is much better off dead!  What do you expect me to do?  She had 3rd degree burns over half her body—even with a full hospital, she'd be likely to die!"  The short asian doctor rubbed his eyes and softened his voice.  "There was nothing we could do for her, Denise… it's better that she didn't wake up."  _And She won't be the only one. _  The numbers of injured in this one area was terrifying—the numbers that had been unable to escape the buildings or shelters that had been transformed into crematoriums ,even more so.

            "Will help come?"  Denise asked.

            "I don't know.  What about the radio?"  Among the things they'd found had been a wrecked RDF jeep—but its radio worked and some of the uninjured were trying to get it to work, to call anyone.

            "Nothing but weird noises—Jacob says it might be some military code."  She paused, "He's started calling for help."

***

"'…and find me some micronian tech.'  Why doesn't he get it himself."  Kashik muttered to himself.  The ground combat officer marched along in his Nousdral Ger mecha—oh yes, it could fly, if you didn't mind making yourself a target for every SAM in the area—and more importantly, the other soldiers in the unit were either unpowered, or piloting regults—which also could not fly.  Not in this gravity, at least.  They had the more advanced …. Pods, but they were required for salvage and engineering work, which the presence of arms made possible and was the reason that combat engineer units had gotten them first.  

            "And of course, Zor forbid that any female would let her precious mecha get muddy."  He continued his monolog.  The females had some of the newest mecha to come down the production line—advanced battlepods, armor, next generation cavalry mecha and power suits…and the only things they'd let people see had been the Quedlann Rau's, and of course those couldn't be used out here!

            "And to top it off, we have a midget of ah-"

            "Ahem."  The voice of his overall commander riding high (and _dry)_ in a Quel-Quallie handling top cover and air control broke in.  "I _don't_ think its wise to be so open over the tactical network, do you?"

            "No sir, of course sir."  Kashik said, turning off his mike before his mutters became actually treasonous.  Thirty seconds later, he turned it back on.  

            "Finished, Kashik?"  

            "Yes sir."  

            "Good—we've been picking up some weak radio messages up ahead—coordinates to follow."  Kashik looked at the coordinates as they came up on his screen.

            "Got them."

            "Check them out— we're not picking up anything that looks like a weapon…"  the captains voice trailed off, and Kashik nodded.  Pre-packaged missiles or land mines didn't scream "Here I am!" like a warship weapons.

            "We'll watch."  He paused, and looked around at the buildings.  There was a building directly infront of him, seared by the shock and thermal pulse from the bombardment.  What had it been?  There was a variety of colors, not completely seared off—the thing must have been a riot of greens and golds.  A military emplacement?  Impossible.  It wasn't hardened at all.  There were a variety of micronian bodies scattered around the front of it.  Most of them evidently killed by the initial searing thermal pulse, some had survived—and  had apparently been crawling to an oddly painted and shaped object in the middle of the open area.  It looked like a squashed sphere, and evidently had been painted orange at some point, with several openings in it.  Kashik blinked and dialed up the magnification.  No he hadn't been mistaken.  Those micronians were less then half the size the database indicated.  Wonderful.  Another place where  the Zor cursed intelligence had been off.  

            "OK, everyone lets move out."  He said. Enough delay.  But why had they been so determined to reach the object?  It wasn't a bunker, or a weapon or mecha….

            "Micronians."  He finally said, letting that be his explanation. 

            The thundering sound of the Zentraedi faded into the distance, leaving only the rain and the odd bolt of lightning and responding thunder.  In the dreary rain the pre-schools story pumpkin stood forlorn, surrounded by the dead children.  


	3. Chapter 3

"Kashick—we have a radio transmission."

"I see it." Kashick said. His scanners picked up the radio transmitter, and creating a visual image of the energy, displayed its exact location on his screen. Very low wattage, broadcast, not tight beam, and evidently not scrambled. What was it saying?

"Commander." One of the troopers spoke, "I'm getting some movement to the right—22 degrees, about 220 meters. Micronian." Kashick tensed. A radio and then movement? Troops? The zentraedi looked around the wrecked city—there were certainly enough places to hide soldiers and weapons…

"Freeze." He said, and every one of his soldiers settled into immobility, like titan statues. A moment later and his slaved readout confirmed that the movement was heading _away_ from them, towards the radio transmission.

"Sir."

"I know—we'll wait until they're at the radio site, and then move in." He flipped to the command circuit.

"Those missiles…" His commander came back,

"Yes, Kashick, if you need them we have them—reaction, nuclear or fusion, take your choice."

"Thanks." He said, sarcastically—the commander was obviously hinting he was an old micronian….not that Kashick really minded. Those "old micronians" had managed to eliminate Dolza and the Grand Fleet, after all.

"Torath, Kron…" He spoke into his mike. "Take your squads around to the opposite side of the transmission—I don't want anyone getting away—if you meet major opposition, withdraw and well destroy the site with missiles—we can always find more micronians. "

"Understood, commander." The two said, and they faded off into the murk, leaving Kashick and his troops alone.

"Everyone else—do not fire unless fired upon—I'd prefer to get this over with. But if we meet major opposition, withdraw and let the missiles handle it. Understood?"

"Yes."

* * *

Mary and her little cluster of lost chicks stopped at the edge of the open space and stood in shock.

_This is help?_ The clear space was covered with people, some standing in shock, some trying to help, some gathering supplies…. There were bodies, many of them in one area, not buried or even clothed. Mary shuddered as she saw one woman stripped of her clothing, which was put into a pile.

_We don't even have enough clothes… Oh God…help._ Mary thought. But if God was going to help, he would have done something before now, she reckoned.

"Help…please?" She asked, but most of the people around her seemed to be too stunned to do anything. "I have children from the first district primary school… are any parents here? Can anyone help me!" Her voice started scaling up involuntarily, tears running down her face, mixing with the salty rain that had drenched everyone, not cooling in the hot, humid air, but merely adding one more bit of misery.

"I'm here." A voice said, and Mary turned and saw a man, in what looked like the remnants of a doctor's outfit.

"Oh thank God, Doctor, some of the children are sick and I-" He raised a hand and cut off Mary's stream of words.

"My name is Dr. Chan, Mary." Looking at the children, Chan sighed, and lowered his voice. "And it is very likely that the children are suffering from exhaustion and hunger… we have some water, and less food, but children get the first priority." He paused, "but we have no medicine or medical equipment, so I'm afraid we can't help you there….did you see any sign of civil defense units or other relief?" Mutely, Mary shook her head in horror.

"I…understand." Chan said. He wondered if the girl realized that probably meant none of them would live out the week. Most of the food was gone, or contaminated, the water was contaminated, the rains were soaking people and even without that, the mounds of bodies would lead to typhus and a dozen other types of sicknesses without immense efforts to clear and bury them…which nobody could organize.

"Doctor…what do we…" Mary's voice trailed off. There was another sound. Metallic. Turning around she peered through the fog and rain, but couldn't see anything.

"Could it be…rescue?" Chan shook his head.

"It doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard…." And then were was a chorus of screams from the other side of the cleared area, as hundreds of civilians ran towards them…. And from the fog, with searchlights blazing, demons entered the square.

Demons clad in armor and bristling with unknown weapons, demons so tall that they made the humans look like ants. Mary had seen the images of the battles in the Ontario quadrant, but never a close up of what the aliens used on the ground. The children clustered about her screaming, as she whirled around, to see more of the monstrous war machines emerging from the direction they had come.

_They were following us!_ Her mind gibbered. Some of them looked like pods mounted on a pair of ostrich like legs, while a few looked like gigantic knights, with large cannon affixed to one shoulder. One of the latter, with mysterious symbols on it, advanced on Mary and Chan. She whimpered backing up, trying to push the children behind her, for all the good it would do.

One of the men further in raised a hunting rifle he'd found and open fire, the bullet sparking harmless sparks off a war machine, which moved like lightning, aiming it's weapons at the crowded square….

* * *

"Do not fire! DO NOT FIRE!" Kashick bellowed into the comlink. "That thing didn't even scratch your paint!"

"But sir!"

"Morn, if you fire I promise I will find Khyron just so I can transfer you into his battalion!" That shut him up. Kashick looked down at his readouts and frowned. No other weapons, nothing that looked like a military vehicle, just a horde of micronians, running back and forth, shying away from the mecha. There were more sounds of panic as the re-entry pods descended, powerful searchlights marking out an area to land. Now to get them on board.

"Attention!" he bellowed into the mike, after setting the link to the translation computers in the Quel-Quallie, "You are now prisoners of the Zentraedi! You will move into the reentry pods and make no attempt at resistance! Am I understood?"

Mary closed her eyes, waiting for death, then cautiously opened them. The aliens hadn't done anything. Then, one spoke with words of thunder.

"Vous êtes maintenant des prisonniers du Zentraedi ! Vous entrerez dans les cosses de ré-entrée et ne ferez aucune tentative de résistance ! Est-ce que je suis compris ?" She blinked. So did everyone else.

"They're…French?"

"No, but maybe they think we're French." Chan said. Unfortunately, it seemed that none of the survivors spoke French, so they looked up in confusion at the mecha that looked back at them. A few mecha shifted slightly, and Mary got the mad urge to giggle at the image of the gigantic war machines beginning to give the impression of guests at a party who had just committed a breach of manners and were uncomfortably waiting for someone to laugh..

* * *

Kaschick waited. Nothing happened. In fact….

"Command, I don't think they understand what I said. Was intelligence sure this was the right thing to say?"

"Ah…wait one…." His commander came back. "Kashick, I'm afraid that Intelligence may have been in error…try this language."

"_This language?_" Kaschick blinked, "How many do they _have?_"

"Over a hundred."

"Zor's blood…. How do they get anything _done?_"

"Don't know, Don't care….try this file."

"Yes sir." Kashick sighed.

"Sie sind jetzt Gefangene des Zentraedi! Sie ziehen in die Reentryhülsen um und bilden keinen Versuch am Widerstand! Werde ich verstanden?"

Several repetitions later, Kashick saw the micronians look up at him and shouted into the microphone.

"That's the right one!" in an underbreath he continued, "_finally."

* * *

_

Mary shuddered looking at the vast landing craft that had descended, casually crushing rubble under their pads. Now the computer voices were commanding them to board those pods. The children clung to her, and nobody moved.

"What are you waiting for?" The giant mecha thundered. "Go into the reentry pod."

"Why?" A man shouted, "So you can kill us?" There was no reply for a moment, and then suddenly the large cannon on the back of the mecha unshipped itself and with a whir targeted the rubble of a building several miles away. A sun-bright lance of energy speared the building, reducing it to molten fragments of steel and glass.

"I don't have to get you on board to do _that_." Still the crowd didn't move. Chan moved up beside Mary and shouted.

"We have injured, and no food, water, or shelter. Will you garuntee us that?"

Inside his mecha, Kashick considered blasting the micronians, stomping them, or just running off with an incoherent scream. He could certainly plead combat fatigue. They had no guns, no mecha and here they were trying to set _conditions?_ The only thing they had going for them was the terrible things Korva would do to him if he couldn't bring them back and they couldn't know about that… could they?

"Well?" The micronian asked. Then on Kashick's command frequency a voice broke in…a female voice from the base.

"Haven't you got those prisoners loaded yet? You've had almost twenty minutes and we would like to use those pods for other things…." Kashick ground his teeth and finally flicked on his external speakers.

"Yes!" Kashick bellowed, "You will be provided food, water and care so now _get on the pods!"_ He had no idea how those hasty words would change…everything. The crowd slowly, unwillingly, moved into the pods, directed by pointed fingers, only moving because there was no other alternative—even to escape was to insure death, if deferred. But there were others who had listened, who remained hidden in some of the buildings. Kaschick's sensors picked a few of them up, but he had been ordered to "get micronians", not get "All" micronians. These would have to do.

"Morn."

"Sir?"

"Start getting any examples of micronian equipment—vehicles, anything like that for Korva.

"In this weath-can't it wait until-"

"Khyron, Transfer to, Morn."

"Yes sir."

* * *

The walls of the encampment were rising rapidly, Korva noted with approval. Large engineering units had been set up, taking in soil, rocks, and rubble and converting it into a variety of shaped ceramic materials, courtesy of the fusion furnaces in their gut—not just that, but in several areas, engineering teams were playing a spray of vaporized ceramic over blocks or slopes forming a surface the way a painter might paint a barracks. That was being done for the secondary walls, but the main walls were all getting the purpose formed ceramic blocks, linked together and sealed with molten ceramic. They would laugh at anything short of heavy weaponry—not that most advanced enemies would ever try to just come over the wall… although there had been those odd water breathers on Axa IV, but than, they hadn't had much practice at ground combat.

Korva's data pad bleeped, and he looked at it. An even dozen "most urgent" messages waited for him, mostly from the females. He looked at them, frowned, deleted nine of them, from those who had proven to be masters of asking such brilliant questions as "could he let them know when it would stop raining…" repeatedly. They weren't dumb, but mistrust of males and a lack of experience on a planetary surface hadn't made them easy to work with. The others he quickly answered, as however prickly they might be, Tzarna, and Zara were both intelligent and not given to wasting time.

"Korva, this is command." Shygon's voice came into his earmike.

"Yes Shygon?"

"Kashick is returning—he has several hundred micronians, as well as examples of technology—much of it damaged." Korva nodded.

"Only to be expected—no doubt their best equipment was widely dispersed."

"He also states that none of them appear to be…soldiers."

"_none?_"

"One fired on them with a small chemical weapon…but Kashick believes that confirms his opinion—even a poor soldier would have recognized the futility… also, the micronians are of different sizes…"

"Hmmm…. Intelligence fails again… I am…quite surprised." The two shared a chuckle.

"Very well, are their quarters ready?"

"Yes—and Tzarna is already making noises about how much damage they could do running around loose."

"What about Commander Sharin?"

"She expresses satisfaction in our preparations." Korva grinned. Shygon wasn't overly happy about Sharin's place of command, but he could find no reasonable grounds to object.

"Than I am satisfied as well. I'll be there momentarily."

* * *

Mary and the children were sitting in a gigantic infantry compartment, with the other humans. Around them, sitting in seats were the robots that had taken them, while a ladder led to a compartment above, where she could see some other creatures, that looked like gigantic blue skinned humans.

"Base control, we are approaching on landing pattern Delos Five-Aleph."

"Confirm, IFF reads friendly, cleared landing." The two re-entry pods landed, themselves dwarfed by the vast ships scattered around the base, touching down in top of the main top elevator hatch of the Tal Vergnitz. Inside, there were more mecha standing ready, with dozens of soldiers holding emptied tool boxes for prisoner transport. Tzarna had argued against letting them into the ship, but Sharin had believed an _external_ transfer, between the chaos of the construction and the rain, might well make it easier for them to escape. They would be loaded into the transports, then carried to the external building, linked by a dry (and sensor covered) access way. _This _time, Kashick had his language settings right.

"Micronians! Move into the provided containers. Resistance will be harshly dealt with!"

"What about the food and water?" someone shouted. Kashick began to swell up, but then Sharin and Korva were walking up.

Mary looked around the lit chamber, vast beyond comprehension with more of the aliens, all colors and both sexes, walking around, working on machinery, looking at them, pointing guns at them…. And two, one gigantic, even for the alien, and the other a woman who if she was human sized would have been both shapely and petite.

"Food and care will be provided for you." The woman said, her voice being repeated their language by speakers.

"Are you going to kill us?" A woman asked, cowering in her husbands arms. For some reason, Mary could have sworn that the alien woman swallowed at the sight and turned a little pale, but her voice was still calm.

_They're holding each other like that singing harridan did the male and- _Sharin rallied. _This _time, they had no fleet of traitors to take advantage of the strange effect they had on zentraedi.

"No. I am going to ask you questions. If you attempt to escape, or damage the ships, then yes, I will kill you, but if not, there would be no purpose served to it."

"Are we slaves?" Another person asked. Sharin tapped her earpiece.

"That word you used, 'slaves' did not properly translate….are you asking will you be compensated?"

"Are we free?" Now Sharin was completely confused. To be free of rank meant to be rankless—less than nothing, a creature to be slain out of hand. Not even new decants were rankless. It had to be a glitch in the computer software.

"I am having a problem understanding your requests." She said, "But I swear that no harm shall come to you while you cooperate."

"Who won?" Someone else asked, and now several zentraedi were tensing. Sharin shook her head.

"Nobody. Your forces decimated the Grand Fleet, but have also been decimated. We have seen no signs of organization beyond our own base." She nodded to the soldiers, and they placed the containers down, and the micronians evidently believing that they'd pushed their luck enough for one day, obediently entered them.

"Was that wise?" Korva asked. "Showing our weakness?"

"If any of them have any knowledge of events at all, they must know of the blows landed against us—and their own eyes will have shown them that their own forces suffered as heavily." Sharin said. "Since the truth is so apparent, why lie…and it may lessen their desires to escape."

"Ah. Clever." Korva said, "Now I remember why I stayed in ground combat and engineering."

"Oh?"

"I enjoy physical problems—command staff politics make my head hurt." Sharin shook her head at that. Most zentraedi were expected to be aggressive and ambitious, the better to serve the masters, but ground combat commands were regarded as something of a dead end—occupation jobs where you put those zentraedi you couldn't trust on the important assignments.

Or perhaps where you put those zentraedi who just wanted to get the job done, she now thought.

"So, what are our plans for them?" Korva continued.

"The research staff will run tests on them." Sharin replied. Every flagship had a small research section—even after thousands of years, the Robotech Masters hadn't discovered everything, and more than one ship had been depopulated by something that looked "harmless enough". "And we'll question them—we need all resources Korva, and Micronians count as part of those resources… you'll be in charge of the micronian technology, of course." Korva grinned at the thought.

"I thank you—hopefully we'll be able to see if any of _their_ technology can make _our_ lives, better."

"Hopefully so, Korva." Sharin said. Her data pad squawked and she looked down at it. "How surprising, a dispute… over…. " She sighed, "quarters."

"At least they're over their shock enough to complain about quarters."

"I wonder if _they_ will consider that good once I get done with them." Sharin said, eyes glittering. Korva laughed.

"Maybe not, commander, but I do…. Good hunting."

"And you as well, commander."

* * *

To be Continued. 


End file.
